


here goes

by guiltylights



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: First-years as Second-years, Fluff and Humor, Getting Together, M/M, Realising Your Feelings, Slow Dancing, it's so Sappy i gave myself secondhand embarrassment writing it, like I said this is Really Soft, some good ole Karasuno first-year shenanigans at the front too, technically it's set near the end of the year so they're about to become third-years, they realise their feelings to the soundtrack of a slow Broadway musical love song, this is just Really Soft Kagehina, well a kind of it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-03
Updated: 2019-12-03
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:14:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21657391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guiltylights/pseuds/guiltylights
Summary: This is just for his stupid class play,Kageyama reminded himself. Though Kageyama doubted that Hinata would have to lookupat the girl he would performing this with, and it didn’t feel like they were practicing for much ofanythingright now.And then, quite suddenly, Hinata’s hand raised, and he laid a palm against Kageyama’s jaw, fingers small but strong as they brushed over the skin on Kageyama’s cheek. The touch was soft, but there was no hesitation.Hinata was chosen to play a romantic male lead for his class play, as part of Karasuno High's end of year school festival. Obviously, he enlisted Kageyama's help. Kageyama said yes, though there had been a weird air hanging around the two of them recently.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio
Comments: 6
Kudos: 105





	here goes

**Author's Note:**

> [Time started: 1st Dec 19, 9:32pm;— ] 
> 
> The original context of this fic actually came from a multi-chaptered, big musical theatre!AU I had planned ages ago. But I have since grown uninterested in the AU, and because of that this fic became essentially aimless. Additionally, in recent times I have been rewatching clips and episodes of Haikyuu!!, and I found that key aspects of my past characterisation that allowed for my AU has become unsatisfactory. So that AU has been abandoned. 
> 
> That being said, there are some parts of the following fic that I found too decent to just send to the trashcan. So I’m salvaging what I can while transferring this fic to the canon context. Also in general I am a sucker for Very Soft Kagehina, which is basically what this entire fic is. It’s just Very Soft Kagehina. I’m very much not sorry. 
> 
> So have this Really Quite Soft Kagehina. The song they’re acting to is ['I Should Tell You', from Rent! the musical](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=majeyBAFLGI)—and if you know the song, that should tell you all you need to know. The title is also technically taken from that song too. I recommend having the song on loop as you read this. God knows I had it on loop when I wrote it.

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It started with Hinata telling them, and with Tsukishima dissolving into full out laughter.

Hinata stamped his feet. ‘Stop laughing!’ He said, looking like he was embarrassed, angry, and pleading all at once. His face is almost as bright as his hair; briefly Kageyama wondered if that was even possible. ‘I’m asking seriously for help here! What am I supposed to do! I don’t know how to dance! _I don’t know how to sing!’_

‘No kidding,’ Kageyama muttered, remembering several instances of badly-sung karaoke sessions at once. Hinata shot him a glare.

‘Well, technically you don’t have to sing!’ Yachi said, trying her best to be helpful and reassuring. ‘You’re mouthing along to the song recording. So that’s one thing down, at least!’

_‘But I still don’t know how to dance!’_

‘Well—’

‘You aren’t really dancing either, to be fair,’ Yamaguchi pointed out. ‘All you’re doing is swaying and staring into the girl’s eyes. There isn’t much you have to do, actually.’

Hinata pulled at his hair. ‘Yeah, I guess, but—'

‘Hang on, no, sorry,’ Tsukishima interrupted. He’d calmed down from his laughing fit, but he still had a smug smirk curling the corners of his mouth. ‘Can we talk about how you got picked for this, again?’

‘I just told you!’

‘Yeah, but tell us again. I want to record it for playing back to myself whenever I get sad.’

‘Are you even capable of feeling sad?’ Hinata asked, spitefully. ‘I always assumed there’d be an empty hole where your heart should be.’

‘Alright, alright,’ Yamaguchi intervened before Tsukishima could answer back with a scathing remark that would probably escalate the fight, ‘let’s not be mean to each other. Tsukki, don’t be mean to Hinata—he’s already panicking enough as it is.’

Hinata turned wide eyes of gratitude to Yamaguchi, only for that gratitude to turn to betrayal as he realised that Yamaguchi himself was also barely containing his snickering.

‘After all, it isn’t Hinata’s fault he has the most awful luck in the world.’

_‘Yamaguchi,’_ Hinata wailed.

Kageyama ignored the chaos that was happening in favour of picking up the paper that Hinata had, in the throes of his despair, thrust into their faces after bursting into the clubroom about ten minutes ago. The paper had since fallen to the ground, and Kageyama stooped to scoop it off the ground.

_Karasuno High End of Year School Festival,_ it read. _Class 2-3: Play Performance,_ it read. _Hinata Shōyō: Second Male Lead,_ it read.

Apparently, for this year’s end of year school festival, Hinata’s class had elected to put up a performance. Not just any kind of performance, but a musical-style performance, with songs taken from various sources and strung together by an original narrative plotline revue-style. The class had been halfway through enthusiastically discussing the idea before realising that to put up a musical-style performance with singing required, well, singing, but the class had _become too attached to the idea to let it go, you know, and to be fair it’s really cool!,_ and so the class decided to soldier on with lip-synching and music recordings instead. Hinata had been all onboard this idea, until it he had been selected to be one of the two competing romantic male leads. By lottery.

A loud laugh erupted right at Kageyama’s ear. ‘Nope,’ Tsukishima wheezed, plucking the paper out of Kageyama’s hands and studying it before laughing again, ‘still just as funny.’ 

‘Give me back that paper!’ Hinata leaped up, unsuccessfully trying to grab at the form Tsukishima was dangling just out of reach.

‘C’mon, Hinata, you’re going to have to jump a lot higher than that if you’re going to look the girl you’re not-singing with in the eye,’ Tsukishima crowed. Next to him, Yachi was gently, and therefore unsuccessfully, trying to get him to stop.

_‘For your information she’s actually shorter than me—’_

Kageyama tried imagining Hinata singing—or, well, lip-synching—soulfully and sincerely with a girl, and his brain short-circuited. He literally cannot picture it. It went against everything he thought of Hinata. Hinata and romance weren’t two things Kageyama could—or would, for that matter—put together.

‘Alright, alright,’ Yamaguchi said again cajolingly, but for real, this time. ‘Pack it up guys, practice is starting in soon and none of us are even changed yet. Tsukki, return the paper to Hinata. Hinata, put the form away—you can worry about it once practice is over.’

Hinata turned huge eyes to Yamaguchi. ‘But—’

‘Are you saying that this thing is more important than volleyball?’ Yamaguchi asked, as seemingly genuinely as can be, which made this question all the more shrewd.

As expected, Hinata snapped to attention at that. ‘Of course not!’ He said, stuffing the paper into his bag before pulling out his gym uniform. ‘Time for practice!’

His voice was muffled through the cotton of his T-shirt. Kageyama turned back to his own locker; that, at least, was one thing that would never change.

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Things changed more than Kageyama had realised. He only realised it once he was staring down the pointing finger of Hinata, who after volleyball practice had cornered him and asked him to ‘help me practice!’

‘Practice what?’ Kageyama asked. ‘If this is about learning a jump serve again, I told you that you still need to improve on your basic serve’s aim first—’

‘No, not that!’ Hinata said. ‘Though actually I also think you should start helping me with learning the jump serve now too—’

‘Did you literally not hear a single word I just said? I _told_ you—’

‘Okay no but this isn’t about that!’ Hinata interrupted impatiently. ‘No, I want you to help me practice. With my part in my class play.’

Kageyama blinked. Once, twice. Once he had turned the sentence over in his head and made sure that he had, indeed, not misheard Hinata or hallucinated the entirety of the last sentence, he clarified, ‘you want me to _what?’_

‘You heard me.’

There was a pause.

‘Nope.’ Kageyama turned away. ‘I am not doing this.’

‘Noooo, c’ _mon_ Kageyama!’ Kageyama was irritated, but unsurprised, to find that Hinata had thrown himself forward to cling onto Kageyama’s side like a limpet. ‘There’s no one else I can ask! Tsukishima would just make fun of me, Yamaguchi is really nice but he would also probably make fun of me, and I’m too embarrassed to ask him anyway!’

‘Oh, and so you’re not embarrassed to ask _me?’_ Kageyama asked sarcastically. ‘What about Yachi? She would be a better choice for this kind of thing. She’s nice; she won’t make fun of you.’ _And she’s also female,_ Kageyama thought, but didn’t say.

Hinata squirmed. ‘It feels weird asking Yachi! She’s—she’s a girl, you know?’

‘In case you haven’t noticed, the person you’re going to be performing with is a girl too.’

Hinata glared. ‘I _know._ What I meant is that Yachi is a girl, and it feels weird to ask her to practice acting out a lovey-dovey scene with me when we don’t feel that way with each other! You’re the only one I _can_ ask, Kageyama, _please—’_

There was a flaw in the logic of that argument somewhere, but Kageyama couldn’t for the life of him parse it out. He could feel his will weakening to Hinata’s persistent wheedling and piteous looks, anyway—that was happening more than he would like, recently, and Kageyama darkly cursed at both himself and Hinata as he shoved said boy away from him and turned back to the gym.

‘Kageyama?’

‘What are you waiting for?’ Kageyama snapped. ‘Let’s get this stupid thing over with.’

Kageyama didn’t need to turn around to know Hinata was beaming.

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So this was the position Kageyama found himself in: in the Karasuno gym after practice, standing awkwardly on the stage as Hinata fiddled with a speaker system he brought from home because _apparently_ he had planned for this enough for _that._ Yamaguchi had given him the keys for locking up—Hinata had, mercifully, not told him the reason for them staying back late, and Yamaguchi had simply assumed that they were doing so for the sake of practicing more volleyball, and had parted with them with little more words than _try not to stay back too late, you guys, there’s still school tomorrow._

Kageyama looked down at the polished wooden flooring of the stage and shuffled his feet. To think of this as a _stage_ was odd. Kageyama had never seen this part of the gym as anything more than a ledge for water bottles.

‘Got it!’ Hinata crowed triumphantly as he rose from the speaker system. The first few notes of a song rose tinnily from the speakers before Hinata hit a button to cut it off. He bounded over to where Kageyama stood, and handed him a script booklet held together by stapling.

‘Okay, so can we start from this part of the script here, you don’t have to act or anything, just read out the lines—’

‘Are you sure?’ Kageyama asked, squinting. ‘Wouldn’t this be easier for you if like, I don’t know, I tried saying it more girly or something?’

Hinata blinked.

‘Well, no. Mostly because I think you’d be terrible at that, and if you did it, I would start laughing and would never concentrate.’ Kageyama glowered at that. ‘But also, I’ve told you before. That kind of thing doesn’t matter to me.’

Kageyama twitched at that, before lowering his gaze. Right. He, Hinata, and a conversation, a month ago; Hinata had looked nervous and twitchy all throughout lunch break, and when Kageyama had finally caved in and asked what was wrong, Hinata had blurted out that he thought maybe he didn’t like girls, or more like he did like girls but he didn’t necessarily like _only_ girls, and _I don’t know, it’s confusing and weird and I don’t know what’s going on but I know for sure at least that I don’t like_ just _girls, and I just—I just wanted to tell someone, you know? I wanted to tell you._ And Kageyama hadn’t known what to say to _that._

He’d blurted out something nonsensical, then. Something about how _it doesn’t matter to me who you like so long as you still love volleyball most,_ or _that would explain the way you had stopped when that guy celebrity appeared on TV last time we were outside_ —Hinata had protested at that one, face red. His face had been as bright as his hair back then, too.

‘But are you, you know, okay with this?’ Hinata had asked then, tentatively.

‘Dumbass. Why wouldn’t I be?’

‘I don’t know. Some people don’t really get it you know? How you could like anything other than girls if you’re a guy, or vice versa.’

‘No,’ Kageyama had said back then, almost unthinkingly, ‘I get it.’

Since then a weird air had hung around the two of them, the kind of weird that no amount of successful volleyball quicks or loud arguments could overcome. It wasn’t a malicious kind of weird, necessarily, but Kageyama felt a foreboding all the same, like he was standing at the edge of some precipice whose depth and substance he didn’t understand, a few steps away from falling forward. The unknown would always be scary; and it was this same fear that kept Kageyama just a little bit further away from Hinata, from everyone, the past month, further away from himself even, several sleepless nights spent thinking about things and getting nowhere, the knot in his chest all the more frustrating for how nebulous it was. Kageyama had never been the best at thinking about emotions or himself; the former he had been working on improving, even since his dark-spotted middle school days, but the latter he had found he still had a lot to learn.

A hand was waving in front of his face.

‘Hello, Kageyama? Earth to Kageyama, can you hear me, hellooooo—’

Kageyama shook himself out of his thoughts. ‘What?’ He asked.

Hinata stepped back. ‘You were staring into space. You okay?’

Embarrassed at having been caught, Kageyama snapped, ‘I’m fine. So, what’s happening now? What do you need me to do?’

Hinata was looking at him with an inscrutable expression. There were always moments like that, when Hinata’s eyes went wide and luminous and unblinking, and whoever or whatever was under that gaze was rendered honest and undeniable. This was one of the first times Kageyama ever had that gaze directed at himself, specifically. It was unnerving.

(Kageyama made a mental note to himself to think about how this could be used in matches.)

Kageyama’s hands clenched around the script it held. Kageyama looked down at it. ‘You wanted me to read you lines, right?’ He asked. ‘Where do you want me to start?’

‘Hmm. Nope.’ Hinata took the script out of Kageyama’s hands. Kageyama frowned, confused. ‘I’d like to start with the song, if you don’t mind!’ Hinata went over to the speaker system and crouched down to punch a few buttons. ‘Just remember you’re reacting as the girl part,’ he called over his shoulder.

‘Okay.’

‘Even though you’re not a girl!’

Kageyama drew his brows together. ‘I know that.’

Hinata walked back in front of him.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘Just thought you should remember.’

There was a beat of silence as the music on Hinata’s phone loaded. The air around the two of them felt nervous, remote.

And then the music started.

_I should tell you, I’m disaster._ Kageyama watched Hinata mouth along to the words. His own mouth suddenly felt too dry.

_I forget how, to begin it._

In the empty gym there was nobody else but the two of them. The world narrowed to nothing but the stage, Kageyama’s view on nobody else but Hinata standing across from him, several paces away, so far away yet at the same time not quite far enough. Kageyama wanted him gone. Kageyama wanted him closer. 

Hinata glanced up just as the female lead in the song took over. _Let’s just make this part go faster._ Hinata took a step forward; involuntarily, Kageyama stepped back, before surging back forward, incensed at himself for even considering the idea of backing down when faced with Hinata in any way. It was as much a choice as it was an instinct—there was something to Hinata that compelled Kageyama to answer whenever he called, a magnetic pull forward that Kageyama had felt even during their first meeting in middle school, a pull that Kageyama felt now. The female lead in the song was singing something, something about blowing out candles and getting back in through a door, and the male lead was replying with something else, but Kageyama wasn’t really listening.

_I should tell you, I should tell—_

The music suspended itself like a breath over a dark drop for a moment, beats stumbling like water bubbling over rocks on a riverbed. Something large and fast stuck itself in Kageyama’s throat. Hinata wasn’t even mouthing along to the music anymore, just staring at Kageyama in a way that made him feel vulnerable and therefore defensive about it; but Kageyama drew closer to Hinata anyway as the music dipped down to swell like a tide. Hinata was only half a step away now, and his eyes were shadowless and clear as he tipped his head up towards Kageyama’s face. His fists were clenched. _This is just for his stupid class play,_ Kageyama reminded himself. Though Kageyama doubted that Hinata would have to look _up_ at the girl he would performing this with, and it didn’t feel like they were practicing for much of _anything_ right now.

And then, quite suddenly, Hinata’s hand raised, and he laid a palm against Kageyama’s jaw, fingers small but strong as they brushed over the skin on Kageyama’s cheek. The touch was soft, but there was no hesitation. There was only a quiet sort of sincerity, an honesty that burned bright and steady like the glow of a fire in the backdrop of a scenery.

Kageyama almost recoiled as if he’d been burned.

He did not. _Well, here we go._

The palm on his face was a question. Kageyama answered by staying. 

_Now, we—_ Hinata didn’t move away either. His gaze was searching as he looked into Kageyama’s eyes. Honesty Kageyama had known, sincerity no stranger, but never as raw and opened as it was right now, with Kageyama teetering on the edge of a precipice looking down. _Oh no._ Kageyama dropped his eyes; Hinata caught onto that hesitation, and frowned slightly in response. He guided Kageyama’s gaze back upwards with unwavering fingers that set Kageyama’s heart shaking. Kageyama’s hands were shaking too, as they lifted themselves upwards to clutch at Hinata’s sides. _I know this something is— Here goes—_

Within Kageyama, something clicked and caught, like a door latch letting go.

The frustratingly murky feeling that had been plaguing him for the past few weeks untangled itself, and Kageyama was almost amazed at how easy it suddenly was. _Guess so it’s starting to—_

Kageyama leaned forward, and pressed their foreheads together. A breath he did not think he was holding exhaled out of him, quiet and relieved as a man seeking respite at the end of a journey. Without his knowing, his eyes had already slid shut. _Who knows—_

The fingers on Kageyama’s face tightened, and Kageyama opened his eyes. The look on Hinata’s face was as if he was afraid of letting go of the moment, and was determined to make it stay. _Who knows—_

Beneath the sound of the music, Kageyama asked, ‘are you sure you’re okay with this?’ _Who goes where, who goes there—_

Hinata tilted his head. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

‘Things are going to change.’

Hinata shrugged. ‘That’s what things usually do.’

‘And I’m not—’ Kageyama struggled to articulate his feelings. Just because his feelings have become clearer to him didn’t mean his worries became any harder to explain or say. ‘We’re both guys.’

‘I told you, I don’t care about that.’

‘But others—it’s not just about—’

‘I don’t care what other people think, either.’ Hinata’s blinked, sincere and curious. ‘Do you?’

‘I did.’ Kageyama thought about it, admitted, ‘I still do.’

‘That’s okay! We can face it together. The same way we always have.’

‘That doesn’t bother you? The fact that it bothers me?’

‘Well, you’re here right now, aren’t you?’

_Who knows— Here goes—_

Kageyama’s hand lifted, slow, slow, achingly slow, hand moving towards Hinata like the push of the tide, along with the rising swell of the music. _Trusting desire, starting to learn._ The curve of Hinata’s cheek under his fingers felt like seeking home, yet foreign as a stranger, and the fall into the unknown almost startled Kageyama, almost made him drop his hand and run. Despite the music’s rise, in the gym the tinny sound of the orchestra playing from the radio was nothing if not ordinary—momentous as nature, as everyday as miracles. _Walking through fire, without a burn._

Kageyama brushed his thumb across the high ridge of Hinata’s right cheekbone. Hinata answered by pushing closer, meeting him halfway, eyes sliding close as he nuzzled against the palm of Kageyama’s hand. Kageyama wondered if Hinata could hear his heartbeat, thrumming loud and hard in his ears, a sound and sensation that was leaving him feeling dry-mouthed and terrified. This had nothing to do with Hinata’s class performance anymore, Kageyama knew that; he spared a thought to wondering if that was Hinata’s intention all along, before his attention was diverted as Hinata pulled back slightly.

Hinata’s eyes dropped down to sweep its gaze along Kageyama’s shoulders, and the weight of it made Kageyama shiver. _Clinging a shoulder, a leap begins—_ Hinata’s hand on his face smoothed itself along the line of his jaw, down his neck, along his shoulders—Kageyama did nothing but watch Hinata do it, eyes shadowed. He couldn’t have done anything even if he wanted to, paralysed as he was under Hinata’s focus. His hand dropped away from Hinata’s face to hang uselessly at his side. 

Hinata’s eyes followed the path of his own palm, fascinated as though discovering something new about an old thing, and Kageyama found his own eyes following him, watching as Hinata’s hand curved over his forearm, his wrist, finally to his hand. Hinata’s fingers, small but strong, wandered between Kageyama’s, almost as if in exploration, before lacing themselves to Kageyama’s tight. The press of Hinata’s fingertips against Kageyama’s knuckles was hot. Kageyama swallowed.

_Stinging and older, asleep, on pins._ The last note landed itself high and light like a drop of water onto a still pond surface. 

_So here, we go._ Kageyama returned his gaze to Hinata’s face, staring until Hinata finally shifted his own eyes back to meet Kageyama’s own. Hinata did not break eye contact. _Now we—_

Kageyama could feel himself trembling. _Oh no—_

Hinata’s gaze softened slightly in understanding. _I know—_

_Oh no._ Kageyama squeezed Hinata’s palm.

Kageyama can’t see himself, but the longing he felt was so painful that he knew that there was no way it wasn’t displayed on his face. From the way Hinata was frowning in half-concern and half-joy as he brushed Kageyama’s hair out of the way, Kageyama was probably right. _Who goes where, who goes there?_

_Here goes—_ Hinata’s hand stayed in Kageyama’s hair, one finger slipping over Kageyama’s temple. _Here goes, here goes—_

Kageyama’s eyes slid shut.

_Here goes._

The song tailed itself off into nothing, signalling the end of the recording. For a moment there was no other sound in the gym except for Hinata and Kageyama’s own quiet breathing.

Hinata’s laugh was a wet thing, garbled and nasally and the dumbest endearing thing Kageyama has ever heard. _Finally,_ Kageyama heard, from the sound of the laughter choking out from Hinata, from the hanging of the air around them in the empty Karasuno gym, from his own mind, from Hinata’s. _Finally. Finally._

Kageyama opened his eyes. 

Hinata’s eyes were bright, with both tears and laughter. ‘This is the part where you’re supposed to kiss me, you dumbass.’

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(Hinata’s class play, which happened about a month later, went fine. Hinata, as it turned out, was not a gifted performer; but he managed to go through the entire story without forgetting his lines or becoming tongue-tied, which both he and his class counted as a win.

The kiss that he received backstage from Kageyama later on, far away from other people’s prying eyes, was even more so.)

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**Author's Note:**

> For the record I have absolutely no idea if Japanese high schools hold end of year school festivals. They probably don’t. Suspend your disbelief a little while there. 
> 
> This is like the Softest thing I have ever fucking written. I am both appalled and impressed with myself. It’s mostly just an excuse to have them not-slow-dance to a sappy love song. I’ll have you know that I had secondhand embarrassment while WRITING this fic, it was that bad. But when you want to write something Soft you have to write something Soft, so have at it. I hope it brought you readers joy. I also have a [tumblr](http://guilty-lights.tumblr.com/), if you would like to stop by! I am very hyped about Season 4, guys. And also the Nekoma vs. Fukurodani OVA. SEASON 4, OVA, SEASON 4, OVA, SEASON 4, OVA—
> 
> [Time ended: 3rd Dec 19, 3:18pm;— ]


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